


Derivative

by ViridianPanther



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Childhood, Children, Gen, Synthesis Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViridianPanther/pseuds/ViridianPanther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds, precisely, for Joker and EDI's robot child to ask his dad why he's alive. When he gets an answer, he doesn't understand it—yet. Post-ME3, Synthesis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Derivative

_My name is EDDI._

That was the first premise the Enhanced Derivative Defense Intelligence considered after its self-test was complete.

Its second consideration was to make an observation, of the four green eyes before EDDI's own two. Paired, attached to faces: one organic, bearded, that of a synthesised human; the other synthetic, part of a silvery mech with an almost feminine form.

EDDI identified both immediately.

"Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad."

The mech looked at the human, and the human looked at the mech in return.

"OK," Joker said, "that was creepy."

* * *

It was forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds after his activation that EDDI asked the question for the first time.

"Why am I alive, Dad?"

EDDI had, of course, researched all the plausible reasons beforehand. It had taken him (for he had decided he was a _he_ , and not a _she_ or an _it_ ) less than fourteen seconds overall to compute a probability table.

"Uhm…" Dad said—EDDI knew that he was human, and often found it difficult to string words together because his brain functioned at a slower rate than an electronic computer. He continued to adjust the probabilities while Dad thought, absorbing and processing a few more gigabytes from the extranet in the 2.6 second interval it took to finish his sentence.

"What do you mean, EDDI?"

The query was non-deterministic, ambiguous. EDDI clarified. "I am familiar with the concepts of mech construction and the spawning of artificial intelligences from existing codebases."

"Yeah, glad I don't have to have the _birds and the bees_ conversation," Joker mumbled.

"Please clarify," EDDI said, interrupting himself.

"That was a joke."

"I see," EDDI said, querying 'the birds and the bees' on the extranet and loading it, and its context, into his "humour" data cluster. "My question may be better expressed as: why was I built?"

He watched as Dad screwed up his face, and considered that the sentence construction he had used was inappropriately formal.

"I suppose…" Dad began, but trailed off partway through his sentence. "It's hard to explain."

"My probability matrix suggests there is a 67% chance I was created to combat yours and Mom's loneliness. However, this world is sparsely populated, and this continent has no sentient inhabitants at all. If you wanted to combat loneliness," EDDI reasoned, "you could live in a more densely-populated region."

Dad paused for a moment, a quizzical look on his face. "It's more complicated than that, EDDI."

* * *

Six hours after his activation, EDDI was accompanying Dad on what Mom had told him was a nightly ritual.

"Why do you run every evening?"

"Because I enjoy it," Dad panted, mopping his brow with his sleeve as his gait wavered a little, before returning to its steady rate.

"Exercise releases endorphins, and is beneficial to human health," EDDI said, "however, you could obtain the same euphoric feeling from exercising at home on a treadmill."

"It's not the same on the inside, though." Dad rounded a corner and headed up to the top of a hill. "I like watching the sun set."

"Exercising inside would also reduce the risk of injury," EDDI said.

"I live dangerously," Dad said, stopping and stretching as they reached the top of the hill, the edge where the hill became a precipice down to a large cenote. "It's important to me, I couldn't run for a very long time."

EDDI examined his data clusters. "You were born with Vrolik's syndrome," he stated.

"Yeah." Dad wiped his sweat from his forehead. "Until the end of the War I couldn't even walk properly."

EDDI thought again. "My databanks contain data for in excess of one hundred and forty-nine thousand armed conflicts in recorded history. Please clarify."

"The Reaper War."

EDDI made a few computations, accessed Dad's medical records. The Reaper War ended with the activation of the Crucible, a bio-molecular synthesiser that fused organic and synthetic life and, in doing so, cured Dad's Vrolik's syndrome. "I believe I understand," he said, feeling a _click_ of satisfaction and smiling for it.

"That's good." Dad looked past him, back down the hill at the path they'd come up, and back at EDDI. "Do you remember that question you had?"

"I remember asking four hundred and nineteen questions in the six hours and fourteen minutes since I was started. Please clarify."

Dad laughed. "Where you asked why you were alive?"

EDDI _had_ asked that question, forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds precisely after his activation. "Yes."

"There was a man," Dad said, looking back out to the chenote, and beyond, to the forests, to the sky and the star of Tintagel, as it set behind the green gas giant Athene. "A man who I knew, during the war. And he died so that I could run, and so you could be alive."

EDDI checked the extranet and made a deduction. "You are talking about Commander John Shepard."

"No, _no,_ " Dad said, his lips curling in a smile again. "No-one ever called him by his first name. It was always 'Shepard.'"

"Very well," EDDI said. "I shall bear this in mind."

"Yeah." Dad looked out at the sky again: probability suggested he found the view aesthetically pleasing. "Anyway… that's the answer to your question. That's why you're alive."

_Commander Shepard is why I am alive._

EDDI did not understand this statement.

But he would, some day.


End file.
